Tim Farrell/The Star-LedgerNick Swisher bunts in the third inning of Sunday's win over Tampa Bay. It was Swisher's first sacrifice of the season.

Between the empty lockers of Alex Rodriguez and Robinson Cano, a crowd huddled around a backup infielder wearing a green Super Mario Bros. 1-Up T-shirt who has 68 at-bats this year.

In a Yankees clubhouse sporting large salaries and tailored suits, Eduardo Nunez has suddenly been trumpeted as a reason the Yankees may amend their style — on the field, that is — midway through the September playoff race.

After bashing their way to the top of the AL East for five-plus months, all the talk after Sunday’s 6-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays was whether the Yankees would now be playing small ball. Despite all the evidence that they’d be maintaining their power hitting and pitching formula — it was 10 strikeouts from Hiroki Kuroda and a three-run homer from Russell Martin that keyed the victory — Nunez was at the forefront.

Nunez went 0-for-3 on Sunday but stole three bases, a day after hitting his first home run of the season. In the pivotal third inning, when the Yankees scored five runs, Nunez walked and stole second. And Nick Swisher even laid down a sacrifice bunt.

“We had probably the best offensive inning we’ve had all year,” Rodriguez said afterward. “We had a walk, we had a bunt, a stolen base and a home run. That’s as good as it gets for us.”

The Yankees laid down two sacrifice bunts Sunday, giving them 25 for the season — less than one-eighth of their major-league leading 218 home runs. They might play power baseball traditionally, but there seem to be some signs a slight change might be on the way in.

Since July 23, when Ichiro Suzuki debuted in pinstripes, the Yankees have sacrificed 14 times in 51 games. Prior to that day, they had done so just 11 times in 95 games. Suzuki has four sacrifice bunts this season — he had four in 2010 and 2011 combined.

Nunez, too, brings an extra dimension with his speed. In just 29 games, he has 10 stolen bases.

“They give us a different element that we haven’t had a lot of,” manager Joe Girardi said. “When you look at our club, before we had Ichiro and Nuney, there’s a lot of guys that used to hit third and fourth and fifth in the lineup that haven’t bunted for years, haven’t been asked to do a lot of that. I think necessarily when you’re hitting third, fourth, and fifth you’re not stealing a lot of bases. We have those type of players.

“Ichiro is not a guy that has bunted a lot in his career. When you got 250 hits a year, most of the hits were (non-bunt) base hits. We’ve asked him to do a little bit. So I think with the addition of some of the guys and the addition of some of the extra men that we’ve added to the roster, we can do some more things. We can run more. We can do more things and create runs. That’s important.”

When Swisher decided to lay down a sacrifice bunt Sunday — he made the call — it was the first time for him since Sept. 1 of last year. And it may not happen again as he’s never had more than three in any of his seven previous full seasons — and in three years has done so just once. But it still presents a peek into the mind-set the Yankees may have now adopted.

“It’s the first time we’ve really used that small ball to our advantage,” Swisher said. “When we got small ball and Bronx ball going back and forth, it’s going to be fun for us.”